Clint Fagan: The man behind the plate

If there’s a job that perfectly prepares someone for law school and a legal career, it might be being a Major League Baseball umpire.

Just ask Clint Fagan, an ump with 13 years of experience in more than 500 major league and 2,500 minor league games.

“One thing this profession prepares you for is how to keep yourself calm when everything else is going crazy,” Fagan says. “You’re the one person who has to remain steady when everything else is mayhem.”

YouTube is full of examples of Fagan keeping his cool in crazy situations—whether that’s standing nose-to-nose with a screaming player, trying to intervene in a bench-clearing brawl, or taking a deflected pitch straight to the facemask.

A student in the Hybrid J.D. program, Fagan sees similarities between umping and the work lawyers and judges do.

“Like how to handle people when they’re dealing with a lot of emotion, a lot of intensity, and how to defuse a situation,” Fagan says. “At the same time how to think on your feet to resolve the problem.”

Fagan, 35, lives with his wife, Samantha, and their children, Addison and Hudson, in the Houston suburb of Tomball, Texas. He’s an insurance agent during the baseball off-season.

He calls the online and on-campus Hybrid J.D. program a “perfect fit” for his career, one that’s filled with travel to ballparks around the nation, often on short notice.

“The baseball season starts with spring training, and I’m not done until October,” Fagan says. “I couldn’t go to a traditional brick-and-mortar school.” While Fagan hasn’t decided what he’ll do when he earns his J.D., he’s considering working toward—what else—a Certificate in Conflict Resolution from Mitchell Hamline’s nationally ranked Dispute Resolution Institute. “I’ve looked at the Dispute Resolution Institute,” Fagan says. “It really interests me because I think that’s one of my strengths.” Fagan is also looking at a future in sports labor negotiations. He’s held leadership positions with the minor league umpires’ union, where he’s helped negotiate contracts and resolve disputes. But he’s also considering real estate law. He’s learned a lot about that field from one of his mentors, Dan Bellino, who Fagan says is the only major league umpire who is also a practicing attorney. At least until Fagan graduates in four years.

MITCHELL HAMLINE LAW